Journal article
Herbicide and fertilizers promote analogous phylogenetic responses but opposite functional responses in plant communities
Throughout the world, herbicides and fertilizers change species composition in agricultural communities, but how do the cumulative effects of these chemicals impact the functional and phylogenetic structure of non-targeted communities when they drift into adjacent semi-natural habitats? Based on long-term experiment we show that fertilizer and herbicides (glyphosate) have contrasting effects on functional structure, but can increase phylogenetic diversity in semi-natural plant communities.
We found that an increase in nitrogen promoted an increase in the average specific leaf area and canopy height at the community level, but an increase in glyphosate promoted a decrease in those traits. Phylogenetic diversity of plant communities increased when herbicide and fertilizer were applied together, likely because functional traits facilitating plant success in those conditions were not phylogenetically conserved.
Species richness also decreased with increasing levels of nitrogen and glyphosate. Our results suggest that predicting the cumulative effects of agrochemicals is more complex than anticipated due to their distinct selection of traits that may or may not be conserved phylogenetically. Precautionary efforts to mitigate drift of agricultural chemicals into semi-natural habitats are warranted to prevent unforeseeable biodiversity shifts. © 2014 IOP Publishing Ltd.
Language: | English |
---|---|
Publisher: | IOP Publishing |
Year: | 2014 |
Pages: | 024016 |
ISSN: | 17489326 and 17489318 |
Types: | Journal article |
DOI: | 10.1088/1748-9326/9/2/024016 |
ORCIDs: | 0000-0003-3862-0291 and 0000-0003-3932-4312 |
Biodiversity Cumulative effects Ecosystems Environmental Science (all) Fertilizers Forestry Functional response Functional structure Herbicides Long-term experiments Nitrogen Phylogenetic diversity Phylogenetic structures Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment SDG 2 - Zero Hunger SDG 3 - Good Health and Well-being SDG 7 - Affordable and Clean Energy Species composition Specific leaf area Weed control agrochemical canopy architecture fertilizer application functional change herbicide leaf area phylogenetics plant community precautionary principle species richness